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AAA tip life - waterbased wood coatings

2/24/15       
Stephan Member

Website: http://www.spwoodworking.com

Hi guys,
This year I put a Graco wall mounted AAA in the shop. In the past years I've been using gravity guns. Last year I had some large casework jobs and was having major pinhole issues so now we've stepped up. I'm getting used to the new setup quickly and am extremely impressed at the improvements I'm seeing. Being a newbie, I don't have any point of reference as to how long should I expect these tips to last? My main tips I seem to be using are the M515 and M513.

The tips themselves look like the ones in the attached image. Is that a carbide insert in the tip orifice area? I know that I had to order the carbide version of the G15 gun to properly handle the waterbased coatings, if this is relevant at all. I'm mainly wondering if these things last 50hours, 200hours, etc. Or do they last so long that you don't worry about it and just run them until the pattern starts to go off?


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2/24/15       #2: AAA tip life - waterbased wood coat ...
Shane

I run these same tips in an automatic moulding sprayer and have had some tips last a year running thousands and thousands of feet of moulding with waterborne kemaqua primer. the way you handle the tip will greatly expand it's life. if you have a finisher that is poking it with broach needles and scraping the carbide groove with a razor blade like I have people do in the past, you can wreck a tip fast. Best way to keep them tip top is buy a Crest Ultrasonics ultrasonic cleaner and a pail of polychem acrastrip... When your done running or have a plugged tip run them through the cleaner on a heated cycle and at the end of the day let them soak in the cleaner overnight. Do not keep your aircaps soaking too long the polychem will start attacking aluminum parts... the tips are fine... I keep a jar full of clean extras soaking in a glass jar of polychem for quick changes.

2/24/15       #3: AAA tip life - waterbased wood coat ...
JM

From normal use, they should last so long you wont need to worry about it.

After you get used to knowing the ins and outs of the AAA, you will eventually realize when a tip needs replacing.

2/24/15       #4: AAA tip life - waterbased wood coat ...
Stephan Member

Thanks very much guys for the info. I'm self teaching with the AAA, and although I'm good with conventional guns, the AAA is quite different, so I really appreciate the help. I will look into that ultrasonic cleaner. It sounds like a good idea. Do you ever put the piece that seals against the tip (I believe it's called the diffuser) in the ultrasonic cleaner as well? I was thinking about those white seals and if they would tolerate the cleaner ok. I don't remove it every cleaning, but once a week it gets a thorough cleaning as small amounts of finish build up on it.

2/24/15       #5: AAA tip life - waterbased wood coat ...
JM

Those white seals are Teflon. They can handle pretty much all the standard thinners. Agressive strippers, Im not too sure.

We bought a little ultrasonic off ebay for about $50. Works great. We put thinner in it instead of water, and all the gunk just comes right off.

2/25/15       #6: AAA tip life - waterbased wood coat ...
Shane

any plastic or Teflon seals are totally safe evn rubber or nitrile orings in the polychem cleaner... It's waterbased and will not swell rubber seals like a solvent will.... Word of caution if you don't want to blow your face off... Do not put solvents into something like a ultrasonic cleaner.... electricity and solvents do not mix! Heating a solvent is just plain stupid. You could potential heat a solvent to its flash point and boom! think about it.... Solvents evaporate with heat easily... the ultrasonic machine heats the liquid.... if it evaporates at a high rate and gets too empty... it will heat faster towards the bottom and then..... fire... not a good recomendation

2/25/15       #7: AAA tip life - waterbased wood coat ...
Stephan Member

Thanks guys. I was sort of thinking the same thing about the solvent in an ultrasonic cleaner.
Is the polychem a specific product that I should bring in for this purpose or is it one type of many similar cleaners that I could look for here locally.

2/26/15       #8: AAA tip life - waterbased wood coat ...
JM

Using an ultrasonic with a built-in heater may be an issue with the thinners. We have a small and cheap ultrasonic with a timer that will allow it to run a maximum of 30 minutes. The solvent does get warm after this amount of time, but it does not get hot. Im no more concerned about a fire with this than I am about having a cup of thinner sitting on the bench.

That being said, use common sense as different ultrasonics may operate differently.


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